Claudius’s use of the legal term jointresssignals the special nature of his claim to what would normally be Hamlet’s inheritance (the castle as well as the former King’s property). As Old Hamlet’s younger brother, Claudius had no hope of acquiring property expect by marriage. Gertrude is a rich widow and dowager queen. Claudius proclaims that Gertrude’s property is held in jointure, an estate of land held jointly by two or more people. Thus, Gertrude’s property (Hamlet’s inheritance) has in some measure been transferred to Claudius. In Hamlet’s first soliloquey, we are presented with the brutal significance of this hasty marriage and its legal consequences.

“[Hamlet’s] rights of inherirance were subject to his mother’s behavior in various ways. for one thing, he could not be sure of exactly what property would pass directly to him until the expiration of forty days. The Magna Carta protected a widow’s right to dower…and the privilege, called her quarantine, to remain for forty days in the husband’s principal residence before selecting and retiring to her dower lands.” (Burton 78)

Hamlet’s first line reflects his concern. As long as Claudius remains at Elsinore (with Hamlet too much in the sun), he can claim, through the jointure, the castle itself.

“As fortresses, and necessary for the defense of the realm, [castles] were excluded from selection as dower in the matter of publid interest, in order to have them held by a male….[But] the moment Claudius introduced Gertrude as “our queen,/ Th’imperial jointress to this warlike state”…Hamlet was confronted with the staggering fact that his mother;s remarriage put the newly elected king firmly in possession before the expiration of her quarantine.” (Burton 78)

Why on earth is Hamlet pondering self-slaughter? Apart from the obvious, he has also been robbed of his inheritance. (Furthermore, Hamlet ironically prefigures Ophelia’s suicide and the gravedigger’s parody: “No law writer has yet stated the English law relating to suicides so completely as is done in Hamlet,” writes R. A. Guernsey. For details on the law and Ophelia’s suicide see R. A. Guernsey,Ecclesiastical Law in HAMLET: The Burial of Ophelia)

If Claudius and Gertrude had married two months after old Hamlet’s death, then Hamlet’s inheritance would be secure. But she married before the forty days quarantine were up. She had control of the castle and property during that time. Hamlet, knowing that the marriage happened within a month and that the marriage involves a jointure, he perceives that Claudius has ended up with all of his inheritance.

“In the ordinary course, Hamlet would inherit Elsinore and the rest of his two-thirds share in forty days, or earlier if [Gertrude] moved to her dower share before then. Instead, Gertrude remarried immediately. Not to just any eligible nobleman but to the new king; and he, very conveniently, was already holding his court at Elsinore and therefore in possession at the moment of his marriage….[T]his gave Claudius legal control of whatever Gertrude possessed, i.e., the still-undivided estates of the old king.” (Burton 78)